


Tangled Up in Blue

by tjs_whatnot



Category: Shelter (2007)
Genre: M/M, Porn With Plot, Yuleporn, paint in inappropriate places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:25:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/pseuds/tjs_whatnot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaun allows Zach to live out a dream. Zach has really, really good dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangled Up in Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cathalin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathalin/gifts).



> Apparently I had more to say than I once believed when I sat down to write this tiny little treat. I just really love these characters a lot, okay?
> 
> Beta read by my darling dear, Redsnake05. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title lifted from the master, Bob Dylan. <3

Shaun sat over his computer and stared out the studio window at the crashing waves. Sometimes it was impossible to resist those waves’ siren call, _Surf me, join me, your writing can wait_. But today, it wasn’t their call that stopped his fingers from tapping on the keyboard, it was the memories they conjured up.

Those days, last summer with Zach, watching him surf, riding the waves beside him, wanting him so bad and finally getting him. It played in his mind like a bittersweet movie with a cheesy soundtrack. And then there was the riding into the sunset and the Happily Ever After and it was happy, is still very happy.

Only.

It’s nothing really, or if it is something, it’s a little something. They have a charming home with this garage that they converted to a studio where Shaun can write and Zach can paint. But never together. First, that would never work. Zach refused to create with Shaun within the walls, and Shaun could never write with the distraction of Zach being a presence in his space. He already takes up too much space in his mind’s eye.

But also because there is Cody. Shaun loves Cody and can’t believe how much fun he is and how well they all fit. He never even imagined having another live-in boyfriend and now he has a partner and a child. He couldn’t be happier.

Only.

Well, it’s the sex.

See, Zach is still a bit skittish, which is completely acceptable and it doesn’t really matter. Because Shaun is also really, incredibly fuckin’ skittish having sex within, like a mile radius of a child, especially a child that he is responsible for the well being of. He was, of course, unaware of this fear until now.

It was fine. It really was. They would get past this, of course they would. And it wasn’t like they were having no sex, no intimacy. They just had to get it where they could, how they could. At first, Zach’s course load was light and there were plenty of opportunities when Cody was at school and Shaun was supposed to be writing. Zach would show up in the studio and give him a _look_ and Shaun would close down his computer and they would fool around.

It was glorious. Even if it were short lived. Then Zach got a job, he took more classes and they snuck in a quickie in the shower from time to time or snuggled on the couch watching a movie, Cody zonked out on a pile of pillows on the floor and that was glorious too.

His alarm brought him back to his senses and he looked around, forgetting where he was for a minute. The alarm was to tell him that Cody was about to be home from school. He got up and stretched and then went out to wait for the bus. He loved this ritual. It was just so _normal_.

After they gathered the vegetables they would need from the tiny garden in the backyard while Cody told Shaun about his day, they came in and Shaun worked on the prep for dinner, Cody did his homework, still talking about his day. Shaun was in awe of how much could be packed in one day.

After they finished, they grabbed the dog and a Frisbee and went to the beach. When the dog had got some exercise and Shaun had worn out Cody, they checked their traps and gathered the spoils they found waiting in their lobster pots, mostly crayfish with a few spiny lobsters.

Again Shaun marveled at what his life had become.

Then Zach came home all smudged with charcoal and radiating promise and he marveled some more.

“What’s for dinner?” Zach asked, ruffling Cody’s hair and kissing Shaun.

“Stew.”

“Excellent. Mind if I go and jump in the shower before I help you?”

“Sure. Take your time; we’ve done most of the work already.”

Zach put his sketchbook on the counter and, kissing Shaun again, went to get clean. For a delicious moment, Shaun’s mind again wandered to the naked form of his boyfriend dipping his head under the spray, rubbing his hands down his arms until the water heats up and then--

“Shaun?” Cody asked after a moment.

“Yeah, huh?” he answered, not sure if that was the first time Cody had called his name.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Shaun looked down and realized he had been just standing there with a handful of crayfish, staring into space. “Ah, nothing. Mind wander. It happens to us writerly types.”

Cody smiled. “Happens to me too.”

“Yeah?” Shaun asked, putting the fish down and preparing them for the stew. “Maybe you’ll grow up to be a writer too.”

“That would be so cool!”

“It would,” Shaun replied, but again his mind was somewhere else. He had just seen a slip of paper peeking out from Zach’s sketchbook. He opened up the sketch book and closed it again quickly, flashing a look at Cody to make sure he hadn’t seen.

Cody’s head was buried in his Spanish book and so Shaun took a deep breath and opened the book again. He had forgotten Zach was enrolled in a Life Drawing class. The page was filled with the human anatomy. All shapes and sizes of anatomy. A certain part featured prominently.

Shaun licked his lips and pulled out the paper that had caught his attention before. It was a flyer for a call for nude models.

Was Zach considering? He had to laugh. Zach was many things but an exhibitionist wasn’t one of them. Not that modeling was an exhibitionist sport, but at a school where you were also a student? Well, it was a bit showy. No, wait. This was for the class that Zach was currently enrolled in, so that couldn’t be it.

Zach came out of the bathroom, his torso wrapped in a towel, his hair dripping. He saw that his book was opened in Shaun’s hand and he ran to shut it. He too flashed a look to Cody.

“It’s okay, he didn’t see. Besides, it’s the human body. It’s beautiful.”

Zach blushed. “As you can see…I’ve been a bit… um… obsessive about that one part in particular…”

“I did notice. I approve.” He held up the flyer. “What’s this about?”

“Oh, our instructor gave them out to everyone. Apparently they’re running short of models.” He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and headed to the back rooms.

“Are they now?” Shaun whispered to no one.

***

It wasn’t a question of _if_ he was going to do it. Of course he was. He didn’t mind being looked at, and the naked thing was no big deal. No, the question really was whether he was going to tell Zach that he was going to do it or surprise him. If he told him, Zach could hate the idea and beg him not to and, of course, Shaun would have to honor that. But if he didn’t tell him, Zach could also hate the idea and it could get ugly. Not there in the class, Zach would never cause a scene, but later at home. If there was one thing Shaun knew about Zach was, when he put his mind to it, the man could brood. It was almost a superpower.

Still, Shaun was falling in love with the idea of just showing up. He smiled ridiculously just imagining the look on Zach’s face. So much so that he talked himself into it being a surprise, after all, Zach couldn’t stay mad forever, could he?

It wasn’t until the day of his gig, standing in a backroom wearing nothing but a robe that it hit him what exactly he was doing. He would be sitting in the middle of a room and around the room would be about a dozen or so people and they would be studying his every line and contour. He started to shiver with nerves, but more disturbing than that, he started to get aroused.

He slammed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth and with pure force of will, tried to get himself in check.

“You ready?” the instructor asked opening the door and peeking her head in.

Shaun breathed deep. “Sure, let’s do this!”

“I just want you to know that it’s okay if… many of our male models are semi erect at some point during the process. It’s perfectly natural,” the instructor soothed. 

He just nodded, too mortified to say anything.

She opened the door for him and directed him to the middle of the room. Shaun looked down at the floor as he walked out and as he removed his robe. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but there were no introductions, there was no talking at all. He also didn’t hear any gasps, curses or growls, so either Zach was too stunned or he was fine with it.

The instructor had told Shaun when he had arrived what different positions she would like him to get into and how long she’d like him to be in each one. The first she said he could keep as long as he could sustain it.

His arms clutching the high stool behind him, he arched his body up as far as it would go. He felt like he did on a surfboard, leaning back into a wave, his hair tickling the curved wall of water. Stretching his neck back so it was almost touching the stool, he opened his eyes and looked directly into Zach’s stunned ones.

Shaun swallowed painfully and quirked his lip slightly as a greeting. Zach just continued to stare at him, and because Shaun was looking at him upside down, he couldn’t read exactly what his expression was evolving into. Finally though, Zach must have registered that others were busy scribbling away and so tore his eyes from Shaun and reached for his pad and charcoal.

Shaun couldn’t sustain the pose for long. The instructor came and situated him into another one. Now he was sitting on the stool, hunched over a little, his legs spread slightly and his forearms against the halfway point between his thigh and knee.

He was now looking straight at Zach. His expression was no more readable from this angle. He was either resigned to it and was busy sketching his boyfriend’s naked form unemotionally, or he was seething and using every facility to keep it from bubbling over. Either way, Shaun was thoroughly enjoying getting to watch Zach work, engrossed in his sketchbook. The way his tongue would dart out of his mouth, as if trying to taste the experience, the medium and the masterpiece he was creating. The way he was so focused on what he was doing that the world could crumble around him and as long as he had the paper and the charcoal, or spray paint, stencils and the canvas of a wall he’d be oblivious. And his hands, so confident in all things, surfing, cooking, caressing, were never more so than when he had implements of creation in them. 

It wasn’t until the instructor came and put him in his next pose that he noticed, with mortification, the effect that watching Zach work had on him. And of course, _of course_ , it would be the _David_ pose. Just him, standing there, with his ever-expanding penis. He wanted to melt into the floor, but he also wanted to control the look of terror and mortification on his face. His one saving grace was that the instructor had moved him in a way so that he was no longer facing Zach.

As he covertly scanned the students he could see and noticed that none of them really cared, or noticed; he relaxed. _Most important, numbnuts, you must remember, this isn’t about you. You are a piece of meat._ It was like the instructor said, it happened to all the models, not just the ones who couldn’t stop imagining what one of the students could do with those fingers so deftly holding the warmed mound of coal. _Stop it!_ he ordered himself, feeling again his blood warm.

The last pose of the day had him sprawled on a scratchy, white sheeted chaise lounge, one hand tucked up under his neck, the other flopped off the edge of the seat, his loosely curved fingers almost touching the ground.

He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else, tried to remember the characters in the book he was writing, _What are they up to? Would either of them do anything as stupid as this for love? Would either of them be laughing at him right now? Probably both of them._ But, instead, all he could think about was Zach.

Zach had never wanted Shaun to see him work. Part of the reason they had built the studio was so that Zach could hide away there and create. He had no problem showing Shaun his work, Shaun saw all of that, but he didn’t understand why he couldn’t even be in the same room when he was creating it. Zach had said it was personal and Shaun had countered that all his classmates got to see, why not him?

Now he got it. Now he understood that none of his classmates were seeing anything, they all were in their own creative bubble. Now he understood what Zach had meant by personal, that look in his eye, that swipe of his tongue across his lips that he probably didn’t even know he did, the way his whole being just seemed to glow. Now he understood this was something that Zach did specifically for Zach and he needed to shut the world out to do it. 

Now Shaun understood why Zach was going to be so very angry that he had come today.

Still, he had not expected that when he came back out to the classroom after getting dressed that Zach would be gone, not even so much as a “Fuck you.” Of course, when Shaun got home, the studio was locked and some mindless trance music was blaring from one of the slightly opened windows. He knew better than to interrupt Zach in either creating or brooding. But when he didn’t show up for dinner and at least pretend to be a happy family? Shaun chickened out and sent Cody out with a plate of food and a practiced mopey face. Both things returned with him.

“He wouldn’t even open the door,” Cody said, handing the plate back and plopping himself down on the couch with the TV remote, completely unconcerned. Cody knew his uncle’s moods better that he did, Shaun reasoned, so he tried to make nothing of it and after he put away dinner and cleaned up, he went and sat next to Cody on the couch.

As the night droned on and they watched stupid show after stupid show, Shaun’s nervousness turned into worry, then annoyance and finally anger. By the time he realized that Cody had fallen asleep with his head on Shaun’s knee because Zach hadn’t come in and gone through his and Cody’s very special night time routine, a routine that Zach had been _very_ insistent on because Cody had never had routine, never had consistency and Zach was _determined_ to give him that, Shaun’s anger was bubbling into a full on rage.

Cradling Cody gently to his chest, he lifted him up and carried him to his bed, forgoing the teeth brushing, the change into pajamas and whatever other ritual usually performed and laid him down on his mussed up bed, slipped his flip-flops off and pulled the light blanket over his small frame. Then he opened the window slightly so that the smell and sound of the sea wafted in, the soundtrack of Cody’s dreams.

He stood over the boy for a minute, making sure that he was still sound asleep. Of course he was, the kid was a pretty sound sleeper, a fact that Zach had tried to convince him of for a long time. After that he went about the house preparing it for bedtime, turning off the lights, checking the lock on the front door, turning up the thermostat. But, instead of going to bed, brooding separately, he stormed out to the studio.

Banging on the door, he only waited a fraction of a second to call out, “Open the goddamn door!”

He banged again for good measure. “You know I have the key!”

He thought he heard a growl and moments later the door was wrenched open. The first thing his senses were assaulted with was the overbearing smell of paint and turpentine, and sweat. Zach was standing there before him, shirtless, covered in paint and perspiration. There was fire in his eyes, but it wasn’t the rage he was expecting, it was something else, something like what Shaun had seen earlier that day. Something like obsession.

Then Zach had Shaun’s shirt wrapped in his fingers and was pulling him into the room and slamming him against the door. Shaun was too stunned by the action and the look on Zach’s face to do anything. Zach took his fingers around Shaun’s jaw, moving his head from side to side, studying him. He wiped his thumb along the divot in his chin, smearing paint where he touched. Something about that paint smear did something to Zach, Shaun could see that in those eyes.

Zach was kissing him, assaulting him with his mouth, his tongue and his hands wrapping around Shaun tightly. They hadn’t kissed like this, with this passion, this need, this obsessive hunger, for a very long time. Shaun regained his senses and matched Zach’s urgency, running his hands along Zach’s back.

“So, you’re not mad at me?” Shaun gasped out when he was finally released.

“Livid,” Zach answered, attacking his lips again, leaning into Shaun. After a moment he broke the kiss again. “Why did you do it?”

Shaun swallowed before answering truthfully and trying not to wince. “I wanted you to see me naked again. I missed your eyes on me.”

“I see you… I…” he seemed to be at a loss for words, so he just kissed Shaun again. Just as urgently, but this time a bit more tender as well.

They twirled around the room and Shaun didn’t know where they were going or why, but he followed Zach’s lead, until he felt something at the back of his knees stop him. He was pushed roughly and fell back onto the couch that hadn’t been in the middle of the room earlier that day.

Zach immediately straddled him and yanked off his shirt. While he was busy doing that, Shaun had time to look around the room. Again he was in the middle and again he was surrounded by sketchbooks but this time they were all on easels and they were all of him. Naked.

It looked like Zach had taken the sketches he had done in class and was now going from picture to picture in a mad ecstasy of inspiration and paint.

“What…”

Zach snaked one hand to the back of Shaun’s neck, rubbing his thumb along his jaw, while the other worked its way between them to the buttons of Shaun’s jeans. All the while he didn’t take his burning eyes off of Shaun.

“Do you know how hard it was today? To see you there… To have to… to _share_ you with everyone? To have to go about my fuckin’ class as if… as if this dream that I’ve had forever… wasn’t… wasn’t right there…?”

“I didn’t… didn’t know…” Shaun barely got out while Zach slid off of him, taking Shaun’s pants and underwear with him. “Didn’t know about your dream…”

“I’ve dreamed of painting you,” Zach breathed, pouncing back to Shaun, his knees and elbows bent to support his hovering over him.

“I can see,” Shaun said, looking around the room again.

Zach’s eyes were almost unreadable again but there was a wickedness and daring there as well. “No, I’ve dreamed of—” he sat on his hunches and leaned over, rubbing his hands up and down Shaun’s torso, “—painting you.”

“Oh,” Shaun began, then it sunk in. “Oh!” 

He placed his hands on Shaun, wanting this so bad, wanting to be touched, stroked, and caressed. But… “What about Cody?”

Zach leaned over and whispered hot and moist in Shaun’s ear. “He’s asleep, isn’t he? He will sleep through anything.”

“But what if…?”

“What if he wakes up? He’ll know where to find us.”

“What if he does, what if he finds us...?”

Zach moved his head so he was caressing Shaun’s nose with his own. “Fucking? You never accidentally walked in on _your_ parents fucking?”

Shaun’s heart swelled and he stared at Zach with all the love and adoration he could convey. _Parents_. He had never, neither of them had used that word towards Cody. It was what they were, of course it was, in their little cottage and their schedules, routines and dinners at 6, bed by 9, but still, before it had been Shaun’s nephew, his boyfriend’s nephew. And now…

Shaun reached up and wrapped his arms around Zach’s back and pulled him down, straining his neck to meet him half way and devouring his mouth hungrily.

“Paint me,” he moaned after an eternity.

Zach’s eyes dazzled and he stood up, pulled down his shorts and underwear and reached for his pallette.

Shaun laughed. “It’s almost like you planned this.”

Zach blushed. “I knew you’d have to come in here some time.”

He was back on top of Shaun and that look was back, that determined artistic look that said that Shaun was now to be his canvas. Shaun swallowed hard as Zach mixed his paints with a large flat stick. Globbing a large bit of paint on the stick, he breathed on it a moment, as if to warm it perhaps, Shaun thought. Still, when it is dabbed onto his abdomen hallway between his chest and belly button, he flinched.

But then Zach’s fingers were there, working the slick, cool ocean blue paint into streaks and shapes along his stomach, his hips and right to his pubic hair before stopping. His tongue jutted out in determination and again he seemed to be ignoring Shaun’s now fully erect penis entirely.

“Can I…” Shaun began in a low whine. “Kiss you?”

Zach didn’t answer, just bent over and kissed Shaun lightly. Shaun though, wanted more and so slithered his hand along the small of Zach’s back while he used the other elbow to push himself up so that they were now sitting up together, Shaun’s tongue diving into Zach’s mouth as his smile tickled Zach’s lips.

When Zach pulled away, he saw that both of their bellies were now covered in paint. He pretended to glare at Shaun as he reached over and scooped another large glob of the ocean blue paint. Leaning back to expose Shaun’s chest, he ran his wet fingers along Shaun’s shoulder, down his neck line and to the other shoulder. Then he bent down and licked and flicked with his tongue Shaun’s nipples before pulling back again and stroking a darker blue in around them in larger and larger circles.

Shaun reached over and also grabbed some paint, greens and browns and began mimicking Zach’s motions. Kissing each piece of skin before they lathered it with paint and moved on. Meanwhile, their cocks bumped and slid together, demanding to be notice as sensations overloaded Shaun’s mind. With paint streaked fingers, he grabbed at Zach’s ass, clutching him and pulling him so that the friction on his cock was maddening.

While he was doing this, Zach lost all restraint and was grasping for more and more paint as he slathered Shaun’s back, his neck and even running his fingers through his hair as he slowly rotated his hips grinding his cock painfully against Shaun’s.

When it was almost at the point when it was just too much, Zach slid off his lap, rotated his body and got back in position, his ass now in Shaun’s face while he rubbed paint down Shaun’s legs. Shaun, of course, seeing this as in invitation, reached his arms around Zach’s thighs, and laid, wet, tongued kisses along the meat of Zach’s ass, moving slowly to his hole.

Zach moaned and shivered as Shaun entered, his hands stroking and massaging the cheeks of his ass.

“Oh God,” Zach moaned as Shaun swirled and tickled the muscle.

Shaun pulled his tongue back out and Zach cried, “Don’t stop!”

Smiling fondly, Shaun asked, “I don’t suppose this paint would make a good lube?”

Zach laughed against Shaun’s knees. “Not unless you want to be shitting toxic ocean blue for a week.”

Shaun flopped back on the couch in a frustrated huff. Zach however, didn’t seem to be deterred. He maneuvered himself again on top of Shaun, facing him, hovering over him, laying kisses on his face, his throat while simultaneously grinding against Shaun’s hip.

Shaun wrapped his legs around Zach’s torso, forcing him down hard on top of him as he reached between them and grasped tightly to both of their cocks.

“Ride me,” he begged.

Zach smiled wickedly and began slowly moving along the tight grasp of Shaun’s hand. Shaun threw his head back and kept his hand still, again overwhelmed with sensations as Zach’s cock rode along his own and his hand held them tight increasing the tension.

Zach speed up and Shaun’s hand too began to ride the pace he set until they were both frantic and breathing heavy and making obscene noises as they reached their climaxes together.

Zach collapsed on top of him, their warm semen mixing with the paint already drying on their stomachs.

Shaun held Zach’s head to his chest, stroking along the side of his cheek. “You really do have the best dreams.”

Zach wound his fingers through Shaun’s and brought his hand to his lips. “And you really do have the best way of making all my dreams come true.”

Shaun smiled. “That’s what family is for.”


End file.
